


ya’aburnee (you bury me)

by everywordnotsaid



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Pre-Canon, slow burn kinda?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everywordnotsaid/pseuds/everywordnotsaid
Summary: ya'aburnee(n) lit. "you bury me"; the hope that you will die before your love because you cannot live without them.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 31
Kudos: 506





	ya’aburnee (you bury me)

**Author's Note:**

> Basically just 3,000 words of self-indulgence that I felt compelled to write because language is sexy and "you bury me" is literally the perfect declaration of love for these two. I tried my best to be historically accurate but google can only help you so much so I apologize for any inaccuracies in advance.

It is five months now since Yusuf first died on the battlefield of the holy land, five months since Jerusalem fell. Five months that he has spent with the Christian, the two of them settling into a strange uneasy alliance after they tired of killing each other. They are travelling north through Anatolia, towards the Peloponnese. Nicolò says he travelled there once as a boy, and that it was beautiful. That was enough for Yusuf. Neither of them have a destination in mind, nor a home they can return too. So they wander, together, because being alone feels too terrifying. 

Yusuf died today, for the first time in months. Bandits that chose the wrong travellers to rob along the road. It was a stupid death really, he slipped on a pebble and might as well have fallen on the blade of the robber for all the good it did him. He died choking on his own blood. When he woke he found Nicolò standing over the bodies of their attackers, blade red from hilt to tip, and a look of unfamiliar fury in his eyes. It had faded when he saw Yusuf take a breath, slipping from his face like water from a spilled cup to be replaced with something like relief. Yusuf still doesn’t know what it means.

“You know,” Nicolò says in his still broken Arabic, switching back to Genoese for a few words he can’t remember. He is getting better, but he doesn’t learn quickly the way Yusuf does. “The first time I looked upon Jerusalem I wept.”

They are sitting around the campfire Yusuf built them now, the remains of a hare clinging to a spit over the still glowing embers. It is the first time either of them has spoken of the Holy City since they left it behind. Yusuf sets down the shoddy paper notebook he’d bartered the last of his armor for at the village they’d passed through a week ago, wiping charcoal dust from his fingers. 

“For so long I’d dreamed of seeing it, the Holy City. When we arrived, for three days we fasted, and on the third day we marched in procession to the Mount of Olives.” Nicolò pauses then, eyes hazing over with memory, with awe. “I fell to my knees and prayed on the mountain top, and I thought God had given me my divine mission. But what we did there-what _I_ did there. There was no righteousness to be found. There is nothing holy about slaughter.”

The light of the fire flickers, casting the features of Nicolò’s face into sharp relief. Highlighting the line of his cheekbones, the soft curve of his nose. He does not look at Yusuf as he speaks, and there is something close to shame in his voice. 

“I will carry that stain on my soul forever.”

Yusuf thinks about that before he replies. Thinks about the women and children laying dead in their homes, thinks about streets so awash with red you could not see the stone beneath, thinks about an entire city slaughtered. For many months he had held that rage in his heart, bitter like the taste of blood in his mouth. For many months he had hated Nicolò for his part in it. But now he has seen so much else. The way that Nicolò is so eager to learn Arabic, smiling proudly at every new word he fits in his mouth, or the kindness he shows each person they encounter on their journey, the wry humor Yusuf is only now starting to uncover. The way the lines of his face smooth away when he whispers prayers to himself late at night or how Yusuf sometimes catches Nicolò watching him almost reverently when he performs his _salah_. He finds now there is no room in his heart for that hatred any longer, that bitterness is too heavy a burden to carry. 

“I saw no God there,” Yusuf says finally, “Only men. And men can be forgiven.”

He pauses then, watching the firelight dance in Nicolò’s eyes, and when he begins again it is softer then before, an olive branch, some sort of peace offering.   
  
“Allah has said that we must have forgiveness in our hearts for all who walk this earth, even those who have hurt us.” 

Nicolò looks at him across the fire for a long time, then nods slowly. And it is not quite love that Yusuf feels burning in his stomach but it is something close. He thinks about how the line between passion and hatred is a fine one, and he is not sure on which side of it he stands anymore. That should frighten him, but it doesn’t. 

They are at a beach now, along the Aegean Sea. Yusuf is lying on his back in the sand, feeling it warm against his skin even through his shirt. Nicolò sits beside him, shoes discarded with his bare feet in the surf. 

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says slowly, languidly, rolling the name around on his tongue like a candy. “What does it mean?”

Yusuf doesn’t take his eyes off of the sky, squinting against the brilliant blinding blueness of it. It’s the kind of blue that hurts a little too look at, the kind you feel like you are falling in too.

“It means,” he replies, “God will increase.”

Nicolò laughs, light and unburdened in this moment, tilting his head back to expose the hollow of his throat. Yusuf glances over at the sound, and has to turn away again. Somehow the sky hurts less too look at. 

“How apt.”

Nicolò says, almost teasingly, and Yusuf’s cheeks heat in a way that has nothing to do with the sun. 

“And yours?”

He asks, feeling the cool wash of the sea against his toes as the tide rises to meet them. Nicolò shifts to look at him then, a faint smile still lingering on his lips, and the sun dyes the lines of his face gold in a way that makes Yusuf’s throat tighten.

“Victorious,”

He says, softly. And it sounds like a promise.

There is something hidden, deep inside of Yusuf, something he cannot yet put to words. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because of it’s sheer immensity. He does not yet know the language with which to speak it, how to encompass the enormity of it in a way that rings true. To say it would be to give it life, to give it to the world, and he’s not sure he’s ready to do that. Not sure if he’s strong enough to bear the weight of it. But he feels it, like a swell of the ocean in his chest, whenever Nicolò smiles at him. Feels it like something inevitable, coming home to rest. 

In Nicaea Nicolò dreams. They have taken to sharing rooms at the inns they stay in, both because coin is tight in their pockets, and because neither feels comfortable sleeping apart anymore. Yusuf tries not to think about what that might mean.

Tonight Nicolò wakes in a sweat, a gasp tearing itself lose from his lips that echoes against the walls of the cramped room. Yusuf has not yet fallen asleep, sketching by the faint light of the moon at the small desk by the window. He watches as Nicolò’s chest heaves beneath the thin sheets, fingers clenched tightly into fists at his sides. In the pale moonlight that filters through the open window he can see shining silver marks of tears down Nicolò’s temples, soaking into the pillow. 

“Bad dream?”

He asks, barely above a whisper. Nicolò nods, taking a shaky breath, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. Nightmares are not new for either of them. There is enough horror in both of their pasts to dream of for years. Yusuf sets down his charcoal and stands, walking over to crouch by the bed.

“Tell me.”

He murmurs. Nicolò swallows, and when he rolls onto his side to face Yusuf his eyes are dark with something Yusuf cannot name.

“I dreamed I killed you again,” he breathes, like it is a secret, “And this time you did not wake.”

Yusuf feels his breath catch in his throat, and for a moment he can’t move. Nicolò watches him quietly, and their faces are so close now that Yusuf would barely have to lean forward for their noses to brush. He wants to lick the grief off Nicolò’s lips, smooth away the lines of pain creased into his face, he wants to press their bodies together until they forget where they end and the other begins. He wants to undo Nicolò piece by piece, he wants to become. He wants more then he’s ever dared before. 

Nicolò’s eyes are still on his, and there is an invitation there. But Yusuf is a coward, so he pretends he does not see and instead he reaches out and puts a hand on Nicolò’s forehead, thumb gently wiping at the salt on his cheek.

“It is a good thing that it was just a dream, then.”

He whispers, and thinks of the half finished sketch of Nicolò that lies on the open pages of his notebook behind them. 

In Morea they make love for the first time. It is more dangerous here for Yusuf, in the heart of the Christian empire, and they avoid the main roads and cities when they can. When they need supplies Nicolò is the one who goes into town for them, while Yusuf waits at the outskirts. 

It is nearly nightfall, and they have been travelling all day under an ominous bank of swollen dark clouds. Just after the sun sets the storm finally breaks and the sky opens up as it begins to pour, a warm summer rain, and soon they are soaked through to the bone. 

“Look, there,” 

Nicolò calls over the downpour, pointing ahead of them. There is a small farmhouse just off the road, with an empty stable standing behind it. Yusuf lets Nicolò take him by the hand, and pull him under the cover of its roof. Together they collapse into the warm scratchy hay, stripping off their damp outer layers till nothing remains but their skin. The only light in the cramped stall is what filters in through the cracks of the wooden slatted walls, and Nicolò is nothing but an inky silhouette next to him. They are close enough that Yusuf can feel the heat of his body, his breath ghosting against bare skin. He finds he is tired of being a coward. 

Yusuf kisses him the darkness of the stable, lips pressed to hungry lips, hands dipping low beneath clothing in revelation, in worship. It is the first time, but it is not the last. 

He finds he likes kissing Nicolò in the dark. In the dark they could be anything, they could be everything. In the dark he does not see the brown of his fingers against Nicolò’s pale shoulder. Can’t see those painfully blue-green eyes, like the ocean that rolled against the shores of the gulf of Hammāmāt or Nicolò’s straw colored hair shimmering gold in the sun. Can’t see the small bronze cross that Nicolò wears on a string around his neck. He is not ashamed of who or what he is, not ashamed of the God he worships or the color of his skin, but it reminds him that he and Nicolò are not the same. In the dark he is not reminded of their difference. 

Nicolò asks him once, after they have finished, and are lying sweaty and spent next to each other. 

“Why do you only touch me in the darkness? Do…do you find me unattractive?”

The question takes him by surprise and for a second he doesn’t reply.

“Because you are like the sun, _hayati_.” he says finally, and it’s not exactly a lie. “I am afraid if I touch you in the daylight we will both burn.”

He does not say it is because he is afraid, afraid that Nicolò will look at him one day in the sunlight and realize what they are doing is impossible. Realize that the abyss between them yawns too wide, a Muslim and a Christian sharing a bed. They are meant to hate each other, meant to kill each other. They are not meant to fuck, and certainly not to love. Not this tenderly, or this completely. Yusuf feels, with an awful certainty, that someday Nicolò will realize this, like waking from a fever dream and he will leave him then. The thought makes him feel like his chest is caving in. 

They’ve made it to Sicily now, neither of them have died in many months and they have become complacent in their safety. They found an old abandoned farmhouse along the cliffs of the Ionian Sea near Catania, and settled there for the past few weeks, making trips to the nearby town only for olives and cheese and bread. The men arrive during the night, under the cover of a moonless sky. Yusuf should have heard them coming but he is half-asleep, drunk on wine and the sea breeze and the taste of Nicolò in his mouth.

They drag them both out of the cottage, tearing them apart even as they struggle towards each other. 

“Are you not ashamed,” The leader says to Nicolò, “Consorting with this man, a _muslim_. Do you not betray your God?”

Nicolò is on his knees, a man holding either arm, but as he stares up at them he does not look defeated. His ocean eyes shine like ice in the faint starlight, cool and hard and piercing. 

“The only ones I see here who betray God are you.”

He replies, evenly. The man’s face darkens, lips curling back as he backhands Nicolò across the face. Yusuf recognizes him now, he sold them fresh honey at the marketplace last week. 

“Then we will show you the error of your ways.”

He spits, and it is cruel. 

They beat Yusuf, and he has not felt pain like this in so long. He feels his ribs splinter like kindling beneath their boots, his shoulders wrenched back by the men who hold him down. Somewhere nearby he can vaguely hear Nicolò yelling, begging them to stop, begging them to turn their rage on him instead. It only seems to make them angrier. One of them brought a heavy hammer like the ones they use for blacksmithing, and he brings it down on Yusuf’s leg, just above the knee. The bone shatters, and he screams, and hears Nicolò scream with him.

For a second he loses his grip on reality, floating somewhere just beyond himself, while the pain rolls through him. When he comes back it is just in time to see Nicolò break free of the men holding him down, and his eyes are not like ice anymore but a raging fire. He kills one man with his bare hands, snapping his neck, then steals his dagger from his belt as he falls and buries it in the chest of another. It has been so long since Yusuf has seen Nicolò like this, and he remembers a year ago as they fought in the shadow of Jerusalem, the way he had looked then. So fierce and bright and terrible. 

Nicolò takes a step forward towards Yusuf and there is death in his eyes, and if Yusuf were not so furious he might almost pity the stupidity of these small-minded men. Nicolò takes another step, and another, and then stumbles, eyes going wide as he crumples to the ground. Behind him the man he stabbed stands, a heavy rock stained with blood and straw blonde hair in his hands, not yet quite dead. Nicolò does not move from where he fell.

A guttural cry tears itself from Yusuf’s throat at the sight, and he tears himself free of his captors with a half-wild abandon. He fights like a man possessed, ignoring the pain that still hovers insistently at the edges of his mind. He fights like man with nothing left to lose, like a man who does not fear death (because what is death to him now) and the cowards fall under his hands like wheat. 

When it is finished they all lie dead, but it does not matter, none of it does. Panting, Yusuf drags himself over to where Nicolò still lies, unmoving, his eyes clouded with death staring up at nothing. Yusuf’s leg has not yet finished healing and he can feel broken ribs grinding in his chest but he ignores them, pulls Nicolò’s head into his lap, brushes aside the blood soaked hair from his face with trembling hands.

“Nicolò,” he whispers, “Nicolò, _destati_.”

He doesn’t know how long it’s been since Nicolò died, but it feels like too long. Has it ever been this long before? Panic seizes up his mind, his heart. He cannot breath cannot think, cannot move. Destati, he pleads again and again and again. Come back to me, he begs in Genoese, in Arabic, in any language he can think of. He doesn’t realize he’s crying, the world blurry and indistinct at the edges, until he feels the warmth of a hand against his cheek, brushing away the tears. 

“I am here, Yusuf. I am here, _mi amore._ ” 

Nicolò says, smiling up at him, and finally Yusuf can breath again, air rushing back into his lungs. Leaning down, he presses his forehead to Nicolò’s. 

“You are not allowed to go before me.”

He whispers, and finds he means it. A life without Nicolò in it no longer seems like a life worth living, the pain he feels at the concept one that far outweighs a broken leg or a few cracked ribs. Nicolò sits up then, the smile draining from his lips. He is beautiful in the starlight, even with gore in his hair and dirt on his cheeks and another man’s blood soaking into his clothes. 

“We are as one, Yusuf, your birth is my birth. Your death is my death.” He says like a fact, like it is the only thing that makes sense anymore, reaching out to take Yusuf’s face in his hands. “There is no me without you, or you without me. Tell me you know that, you must know that.” 

And Yusuf realizes then that he is a fool, and there is no difference between them. Not one that matters, at least. Leaning in he presses his lips to Nicolò’s. 

“I know.” He murmurs into his mouth, like a promise. “I know.”

Yusuf’s mother had once told him a long time ago that love is like bread, it must be made. It takes effort and time, must be remade over and over. Together, they do. Together they take their love in their hands, and they make it again and again and again. Through centuries and empires and a thousand lives and a thousand deaths they make it. Through Andromache and Quynh and a loss they had forgotten how to mourn. When Nicolò becomes Nicky and Yusuf becomes Josef and then Joe. Through Sebastian and now Nile, and a loss that sits much closer. 

It’s the evening after they escaped from Merrick and his labs, and they're in Copley’s house just outside of London. They all figured he owed them one. It's dark now, a soft darkness that settles over the room Nicky and Joe claimed and softens the corners of the furniture. When Joe blinks he sees grey static behind his eyelids. He can’t stop thinking about Andy, about the wound on her side that didn't stop bleeding, and the way that death comes for them all, in the end. The way someone always has to leave first. 

“Nicolò,” 

He whispers. He can feel Nicky shift against him, turning to face him in their small bed, can feel his attention sharpen as he waits for Yusuf to finish. They only use their old names when things are serious. 

“ _Ya’aburnee_.”

He says, and the word rolls off his tongue like honey. Bury me, he says, and he means it. Nicky looks at him, eyes limpid and shadowed in the near dark, and whispers back.

“ _Amoot feek_.”

I die in you. And perhaps that is always the way it was going to be, the way it always will be. They will go together, or not at all. As Nicolò draws him closer and presses feather light kisses to his cheeks, Yusuf thinks he can bear to live with that. 


End file.
